Golden Time:Volume1 Chapter4

Status: Incomplete

6% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 1: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Tada Banri is turning into a tuna-fish.

In spite of being awake, he can't seem to get up, his body stretched out on the bed and his eyes open in slits, just like a cat's. He is just like a tuna-fish hauled up to Yaisu... for a half-hour already Banri has been like a tuna-fish.

In the entrance-way, corridor and the kitchen, despite it being early in the morning, the veil of darkness has been torn, as if forgetting the night. In the shadowy corner, sitting on a second-hand stool, I've been watching Banri, the tuna-fish.

Facing the two open windows to the northwest, today's weather looks good again, the morning sunlight shining in gently through the cotton curtains he had purchased at a home-center. But as bright as it is around the window, the light doesn't reach to the middle of the room.

By the time they were deciding on this room, they had stopped hesitating over other possibilities. If the place had been a Japanese-style room facing south, then by this hour even the room's nooks and corners would be brightly lit by the morning sunlight, and it would certainly feel nice. Of course that property was good, I am thinking even now. But the wardrobe was big. That room's closet is too small, and already clothes, pajamas, bags and such are already starting to be scattered here and there.

Wrapped up in an eggshell colored sheet, his face still a little puffy and disheveled, Banri as usual was only just opening his eyes. Banri's body wasn't moving, and the still unhealed scratches and sores over all his body were not to blame. Neither were the new complications with people, nor the hectic life of a student, nor the feelings of getting used to living alone.

Every now and then, Banri searches for me.

It's getting to feel as if by holding on to his dreams he were getting clues, as if he thinks that by not moving, he might catch his quarry unprepared, so with his eyes alone he is searching for me. He is understanding that it is futile, and he is planning to stop, but he searches anyway.

"How does he hope to find me?", as if he could hear me if he tried. But even if he could hear, "What in the world? Why are you searching?", he wouldn't understand. Finding and catching me, would that return me to inside of him? Or perhaps, would he erase me entirely? Even so, that guy would not even understand my so-called existence. Such a thing he just cannot do.

So then, Banri, realizing the impossibility of what he was doing, as usual became dejected. Taking a breath, he closed his eyes once more, as if he were awfully tired, bothered by nothing working, and before long crawled under the sheets once more. However many times he did it, even leaving his parent's home and living alone, Banri still didn't change. Still, here he was.

I knew what Banri was going to do next. After all, haven't I seen this show so many times before? Hiding under the sheets, Banri has after a while fallen asleep again. In the time I've existed, after all, how many times has he fallen into this trap? It's called falling back to sleep. This sleep is strangely powerful, heavy and deep, hitting Banri all at once. Even having set his cell-phone alarm to wake him up, with a required exposition on criminal law that he hadn't even started on, Banri doesn't even twitch.

Getting down from the strangely comfortable stool, I approached the bed. Buried near the pillow was the cell-phone, once more making noise. This time it wasn't the alarm that went off. It was from Linda. Wake up, Banri.

If he were to out and say, "Hello, who is it?", Linda would sure be surprised. ...But no, she wouldn't be particularly surprised, would she? There wasn't anything mysterious about calling Tada Banri, or going out with Banri either, in a normal world was there?

Anyway Banri, wake up quickly. ...In other words, really get up. The noise from the alarm or from the cell-phone is making the lady next door mad, and she's hitting the wall. There it is again, the strangely hard sound is frightening.

Doesn't that hurt her fist?

* * *

<~~6% Completed~~>

Back to Chapter 3

Return to Main Page